An outstanding piece of adventure travel writing. The Afghanistan that Stewart portrays is the last holdout of medieval feudalism. An extraordinary journey and a riveting book.
How could this book not be interesting? The fearless author really does walk across Afghanistan. The pluses: The author is honest and the narrative is neither sensational nor dry. He is compassionate toward the people he meets and is smart, determined and reasonable. He is fearless, and as described in the book "nutters." Another plus is the subject matter, the Afghan people and their history. I appreciated the authors anthropologist type of objectivity, even if I could not completely feel it myself.
I love it all, except when he started talking about the clueless American/European government creators. Not because he is wrong, but because he departed into preachines, and I wanted more rural Afghan people stories.
I wish he would have stayed in some of the places for a longer period of time and became more familiar with the people. I don't think the author likes people as much as …
How could this book not be interesting? The fearless author really does walk across Afghanistan. The pluses: The author is honest and the narrative is neither sensational nor dry. He is compassionate toward the people he meets and is smart, determined and reasonable. He is fearless, and as described in the book "nutters." Another plus is the subject matter, the Afghan people and their history. I appreciated the authors anthropologist type of objectivity, even if I could not completely feel it myself.
I love it all, except when he started talking about the clueless American/European government creators. Not because he is wrong, but because he departed into preachines, and I wanted more rural Afghan people stories.
I wish he would have stayed in some of the places for a longer period of time and became more familiar with the people. I don't think the author likes people as much as he likes walking and contemplative study. I understand, there are some truly obnoxious characters, many of them, in this book. Nonetheless, he must have had a terrible time going back to Scotland and having to socialize again.
via clotide dusoulier
